Suffering - Quotes

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary. - Seneca

From what is dear to us, suffering arises. - Unknown

If you cling you will suffer. If you let go of that clinging, that suffering disappears. In dependence on clinging, a certain kind of suffering arises. When that dependent condition for suffering goes away, that suffering goes away as well. - Gil Fronsdal

Most of your suffering comes from the lack of understanding of yourself and others. - Thich Nhat Hanh

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our character, purifies our heart, expands our soul, and makes us more tender and charitable. - Orson Whitney 

Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved. - Helen Keller

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. - Edwin Hubble Chapin 

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar. - Thich Nhat Hanh

People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don’t suffer anymore. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind. - Aristotle

Suffering follows the evil act as the wheel of the cart follows the foot of the ox that draws it. - Unknown

Suffering is a disease and can therefore be cured completely. - The Buddha

Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life. - Horatius

Suffering is due entirely to clinging or resisting; it is a sign of our unwillingness to move on, to flow with life. - Nisargadatta Maharaj

Suffering, I was beginning to think, was essential to a good life, and as inextricable from such a life as bliss. It's a great enhancer. It might last a minute, or a month, but eventually it subsides, and when it does, something else takes its place, and maybe that thing is a greater space. For happiness. Each time I encountered suffering, I believe that I grew, and further defined my capacities--not just my physical ones, but my interior ones as well, for contentment, friendship, or any other human experience. - Lance Armstrong

The Buddha called suffering a holy truth, because our suffering has the capacity of showing us the path to liberation. Embrace your suffering and let it reveal to you the way to peace. - Unknown

The cosmos is indifferent to human suffering, and, it is sheer folly to expect security or eternal happiness while one sojourns in a cosmos subject to constant change. All along it is suffering. Therefore, detachment is the only way to put an end to suffering. -  K. Sri Dhammananda

The ego says, ‘I shouldn’t have to suffer,’ and that thought makes you suffer so much more. It is a distortion of the truth, which is always paradoxical. The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it. - Eckhart Tolle

The man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears. - Michel Montaigne

The reward of suffering is experience. - Aeschylus

The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy. - Thich Nhat Hanh

The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt. - Thomas Merton

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality. - Seneca

We can put an end to our suffering just by realizing that our suffering is not worth suffering for. - Thich Nhat Hanh

We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others. - William Somerset Maugham

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment. - Jim Rohn

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending. - Thich Nhat Hanh

When you learn how to suffer, you suffer much less.-  Thich Nhat Hanh